A Grateful Spaniard.
Time is not long enough for me
To hate mine enemy perfectly,
But God is of infinite mercy and he
To Time has added Eternity.
October 16.
Bores.
I reproached J—— last night for sending me to dinner with E——. "This is the third time you have done it," I grumbled, "and it is just twice too often. None of the other women will talk to him, and because I treat him decently you take advantage of my good nature."
"Oh, but my dear," she countered impishly, "you know you are so juicy with bores!"
Of course, that was true, though there is nothing I envy more than the courage of ruthlessness—one of the first laws of social self-preservation. I am always the helpless prey of bores. They drink as they choose from my "sacred fount," though it is shallow enough, heaven knows! for me to need all its contents for myself. If this condition of affairs arose from good nature I should not be ashamed of it, but it is all sheer cowardliness. My imagination is so vivid that I can feel the corroding humiliation of neglect and indifference to the poor souls as if it were being applied to my own skin, and I labour on, crying protests inwardly, rather than free myself by a moment of brutality.
"Tell bores who waste my time and me" that the best hours of my life have been burned in their dull fires. Again and again have I lost my opportunity to seek the friendship of some adorably amusing creature while sweating to pull the oar that was the bore's own proper task.
This indolent cowardice enfeebles me in a dozen ways; makes it impossible for me to train my dogs for fear of hurting their feelings, and to discharge a servant costs me a white night and a fausse digestion. It is not kindliness, it is only that I feel their discomfort more than they do themselves.